


please, remember me, fondly

by starryskeyess



Series: #sheith69min prompts [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Shiro (Voltron), Post-War, Sheith69min, alien bubble tea, bubble tea, no beta we die like men, s8 isn't real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryskeyess/pseuds/starryskeyess
Summary: Keith takes Shiro out for alien bubble tea.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: #sheith69min prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826635
Comments: 27
Kudos: 67





	please, remember me, fondly

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time participating in the Sheith 69 minute challenge! (@/sheith69min on twitter)  
> Prompt: bubble tea

One of the things Shiro loved best about Keith was his memory.

Between his time as Champion, his death and subsequent time in Black’s consciousness, and Allura transferring him into a new body that had belonged to someone else for months, Shiro’s memory was awful. His body could remember how to dodge an attack before it hits, or how to inflict maximum damage with a single blow, but facts slipped easily from his brain. He’d spent more than a few late nights in his room, scrolling through search results for memory aids and tools, and had perfected a few of them. His note taking in meetings was thorough, detailed, and color coded. The paladins hadn’t known him before Kerberos, had accepted his precision and attention to detail as a natural part of who Shiro _is._

Not Keith, though. Keith remembered.

He remembered trying to read Shiro’s class notes and study guides, which were sloppy and peppered with doodles and shorthand that only Shiro could decipher. He had teased Shiro mercilessly about it, placing bets that the ‘Golden Boy’s’ team wouldn’t be able to read his notes during missions and they would end up on the wrong planet. 

Keith noticed the change in Shiro’s habits immediately. Sometimes it felt like Keith knew him better, loved him better, than he ever possibly could himself. After all, Keith had loved him so wholly, he loved the person who had been in this body before he shoved himself inside. Keith even accepted that person as part of Shiro now, and his love never wavered. Shiro wasn’t sure if he deserved that kind of unconditional grace, wasn’t sure if he had ever been worthy of it, but here Keith was anyway. 

Keith remembered the little things, the things that trickled out of Shiro’s brain constantly. He remembered that Shiro preferred a spicy warm black tea in the morning, but something herbal in the afternoon or he’ll sleep like shit. He remembered that Shiro’s left shoulder got tight from holding himself upright and even. Before it would get bad enough for Shiro to mention it, Keith’s hands were smoothing over the knotted muscles, gentle touches fading into deep presses of his thumbs. 

Some nights they would be up late, shoulder to shoulder in bed, looking through the ceiling into their shared past, and Keith’s voice would lull him to sleep. They talked about their life before Shiro left, sparring sessions, hoverbike racing, outings into town. Whenever Keith told a story, Shiro marveled at the details the younger man described. The shapes of clouds passing by the canyon where their legs dangled late into the night. The ice cream they tried at a local shop with very strange flavor combinations. Keith had remembered that he loved a cherry and spice concoction, while Shiro’s favorite had been called ‘apples and stinky cheese.’ Laughter had chased them into sleep that night, after impassioned defenses of their choices.

Shiro knew he wouldn’t be able to remember those details if his life depended on them. He could remember the sharp flash of Keith’s rare smiles, and the happiness that bloomed in his chest when the cadet’s guard had dropped and he made a wry joke. He could remember how much faith Keith had in him, the look in his eyes when Shiro had dropped his dog tags into his slender hand. 

Keith’s memory had brought them here.

 _Here_ was a small shop on a planet in a star system not far from the Milky Way, crammed between two larger buildings. The sign out front was painted with an uneven hand, swirling alien letters indecipherable. Locals milled about at a leisurely pace, lean mint green bodies wiggling and swaying as if underwater, and they seemed to take little notice of the two paladins.

Keith grabbed his hand that day on their way into town from where they had landed Black and ATLAS, pulling him from the rest of the crew and down a side alley. He walked with such confidence, turning around narrow corners and striding across busy streets. Shiro would follow Keith to the ends of the universe. Following him around a peaceful alien town was nothing.

He pled with Keith to tell him where they were going, but Keith just laughed and shook his head, short tendrils of hair falling loose from his braid. His hand was warm in Shiro’s, bigger and stronger than the hand he had dropped his only real belongings into those years ago, but his fingers were still slender and graceful. They were musician’s hands, wrapped in strength and edged in violence. 

All of Keith was like that. He was so pretty and sharp that it bordered on painful, but Shiro couldn’t stop looking at him anyway.

“Keith, what…?” Shiro asked, question trailing away as he looked closer at the aliens coming out the door of the shop. They were holding cups made of thin, opaque material, and Shiro couldn’t make out the liquid inside.

But Keith didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said quietly as he led Shiro by the hand, fingers laced together in a tight squeeze, into the shop. Inside, sweet smells float over to Shiro, unknown but somehow… familiar? Shiro can feel that same happiness bursting in his chest again, and it feels like Keith’s cheerful voice echoing across empty canyons and chili lime ice cream, and “NEW HIGH SCORE” flashing on a grainy screen.

“Here, what does this look like?” Keith asked, pushing a holographic menu at Shiro with a secret smile.

Shiro’s eyes scanned the screen, scrolling across the options. The words were still indecipherable, but there were pictures alongside various menu items. Tiny shapes in a variety of colors and finishes, and a few pastel colored liquids, and a couple more vibrant colors too. It clicks pretty quickly--it’s alien bubble tea? Is that a thing?

His eyes met Keith’s over the menu, and he knew his were glossy with the tears he was trying to fight back. A couple weeks before he left for Kerberos, Adam’s voice repeating “Don’t expect me to be here when you get back” over and over in his head, he had snuck out a couple of hoverbikes. He had almost felt bad for the text he had sent to Keith that Saturday morning, one of the rare days the cadets had to themselves, but the younger man had answered immediately, and was running up to Shiro, panting slightly, less than five minutes later.

They drove for over an hour to a town Shiro had discovered by accident his first year at the Garrison, when his bike had broken down. They had walked for a while, ending up at a small bubble tea shop, and Shiro had treated them both to tea. Keith had never tried bubble tea before, and his wide eyed reaction to the first tapioca ball that popped in his mouth was well worth the long drive. Even then, Shiro knew just how beautiful and precious the young man next to him was, sharp angles arranged artfully around the softness and depth of his eyes. 

Keith’s voice was soft, almost bashful, when he jolted Shiro back to reality by murmuring, “This planet is a common place for the blades to stop, I found this place almost by accident, but I’ve been back a few times.”

Shiro was too stunned to speak, still thinking about that day. He and Keith had ended up on a park bench for a while, drinking bubble tea and talking. Shiro had been feeling raw, vulnerable, terrified, but it all faded with Keith. He told Keith about how he and his grandparents got bubble tea every weekend, and how it was one of his favorite traditions up until he lost them. He told Keith it had taken him years to step foot back inside a bubble tea shop and not feel like there was a jagged hole in his chest. They had talked about the greasy diner Keith's dad had taken him to after long days at his job, and the spot in Keith's heart that would belong to salty french fries and strawberry milkshakes. 

It was one of the best days Shiro had in the months leading up to the launch. It was a memory that kept him going in Galra dungeons, dripping with blood and the guilt of what he had done to survive. He couldn’t remember the name of the shop, or what they had ordered, but he remembered how light Keith had always made him feel, how heavy a burden Keith lifted from his shoulders just by existing in his orbit. He remembered sunlight glinting in Keith’s dark hair, and dancing in his dark eyes.

Much longer hair hung gracefully in Keith’s face as he leaned over the menu, swiping and selecting a drink. He smiled up at Shiro and said, “So far from what I’ve tried, this one is the closest in taste to taro milk tea, but the color is definitely different.” He selected a different drink as well, and paid for the drinks via the scanner on the menu. 

Shiro opened his mouth to say something, but Keith cut him off, continuing, “I know you always say you don’t like taro because it’s purple, but we both know that’s not true so don’t bother arguing with me.”

A laugh punched out of Shiro’s chest, surprised and joyful. It seemed to catch Keith off guard, like the kiss that Shiro swooped down to press to his mouth, wrapping his arms around Keith’s trim waist to pull him close. Keith made a soft, pleased sound, relaxing into the kiss and holding Shiro’s face reverently, fingertips digging into his undercut. A loud beep chimed from the menu on the counter in front of them, from where Keith had dropped it. They jolted apart, both blushing at almost getting carried away. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Shiro accepted their cups from the employee behind the bar, their pale face unreadable. Shiro smiled and nodded, hoping the gestures were universal enough to be considered polite here. Keith snatched one cup out of his hand, a deep green liquid with a wide silver straw. Keith wrapped his other hand around Shiro’s empty one, locking their fingers together again as they walked back outside.

Shiro eyed his drink a little suspiciously, the bright red liquid swirled with an orange shimmer and looking as far from taro milk as it comes. 

“Come on Shiro, just try it,” Keith said with a laugh, and a gentle shove of his shoulder. Shiro lifted the straw to his lips and, with a last look at Keith, took a small sip. The flavor bloomed on his tongue, familiar and new all at once. It was the sweet taro flavor, like cookies and cream and _home_ , but there’s something else. It’s something warm, nothing like a flavor he’s tasted on earth. 

Keith looked up at him expectantly, holding his breath until Shiro smiled and said, “I like it. It really is like taro, mostly.”

“It’s the one that’s most like it, at least,” Keith said.

“How would you know, huh? You’d have to try them all.”

Keith ducked his head, mumbling something Shiro couldn’t make out. Shiro stopped dead in his tracks, pulling Keith to a halt too. He was at a loss for words--there had to be at least 50 flavors on the menu they had just looked at. That was… a lot of alien bubble tea, or whatever it was.

“Keith, baby…” Shiro trailed off. There weren’t enough words in any language to tell this man how much he loved him, how his heart felt like it would explode out of his chest when he looked down at Keith and remembered that he was Shiro’s.

“I just… I remembered...” Keith said, blush deepening and tinging his cheeks violet. 

“You always do,” Shiro murmured against Keith's lips as he dipped down to kiss him again. Keith was the one to pull him close this time, fingers trailing away from Shiro’s to grip his hip, then flatten against his back. Shiro buried his fingers in Keith’s hair, tasting sweet smoky tea on his lips. 

Keith pressed his forehead against Shiro’s when they parted to breathe, and a soft, awed laugh spilled from his lips. “I could never forget anything about you, Takashi.”

Shiro’s heart swelled and threatened to choke him, so he didn’t reply, just pulled Keith’s face back up to his own. They kissed like they had all the time in the world, slow and thorough. Shiro had been to death and back, and sometimes he forgot things, like the date that the Kerberos launched, or the name of the game Keith always beat him at. But he remembered how Keith felt in his arms, and the pink of each scar that stretched across his pale skin. He remembered this feeling, a joy so intense it ached, like being at home and on an adventure all at once. And for the things he couldn’t remember, he had Keith to remind him.


End file.
